Did You Know...

So, the “new” bin Laden tape is threatening a “reckoning” with Europe over the Mohammed Cartoons. The Religion of Perpetual Outrage strikes again:

Osama bin Laden warned in a new audiotape of a “severe” reaction for Europeans’ publication of cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad in what experts saw as a direct threat of a new attack in Europe.

The message, posted late Wednesday on a militant Web site that has carried al-Qaida statements in the past and bore the logo of the extremist group’s media wing al-Sahab, showed a still image of bin Laden aiming with an assault rifle.

“The response will be what you see and not what you hear and let our mothers bereave us if we do not make victorious our messenger of God,” said a voice believed to be bin Laden’s, without specifying what action would be taken.

…The five-minute message, bin Laden’s first this year, made no mention of the fifth anniversary Wednesday of the U.S.-led invasion in Iraq.

Probably because the “new” tape is old. Rusty at The Jawa Report concludes:

This is an old audio, probably from 2006, of bin Laden. As Sahab must have been embarrassed that they had nothing to offer the world on this the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, so they hurriedly released an old audio they had lying around. The fact that there was no accompanying banner is evidence that they threw this together last minute.

It came as the Muslim world marks the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday Thursday and amid the reigniting of a two-year-old controversy over Danish cartoons deemed by Muslims to be insulting.

In the message, bin Laden described the cartoons as taking place in the framework of a “new Crusade” against Islam, in which he said the pope has played a “large and lengthy role.”

“You went overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquettes of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings,” he said, according to a transcript released by the SITE Institute, another U.S. group that monitors terror messages. “This is the greater and more serious tragedy, and reckoning for it will be more severe.”

Bin Laden dismissed as “excuses” Europe’s citing of freedom of expression to justify the publishing of the cartoons.

“If there is no check on the freedom of your words, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions,” according to a transcript released by the SITE Institute, another U.S. group that monitors terror messages.

Also: “Adam Raisman, senior analyst at the SITE Institute, said that the tape’s release coincides with an increased buzz in online jihadi forums calling for revenge against Europe over the cartoons.”

The jihadis hardly need Osama’s goading to get their juices flowing. The Taliban are ready to use “Fitna” as an excuse to attack NATO troops. “Moderate” Muslim-dominated Indonesia is warning of a backlash against the film.